JOIN USIt is love and concern for environment on the move. A special train, with a focus on the biodiversity of India and climate change, chugged in at Delhi Cantonment Railway Station for four days, with the aim to create awareness among children and adults alike.
The specially designed 16-coach train, showcases the range of biodiversity spread across the bio-geographical zones of India. The train ‘Science Express – Biodiversity Special’ (SEBS) has dedicated eight coaches on the Trans-Himalaya and the Himalayas, the Gangetic Plain, North East, the Desert and Semi-Arid Zone, the Western Ghats, the Deccan Peninsula, the Coasts and Islands.
With the help of visuals, display panels, inter-active medium sculptures, replicas and volunteers, the train aims at making visitors aware of critically endangered; biodiversity hotspots; domesticated biodiversity (agriculture, animal husbandry); threats and challenges like climate change; and conservation measures in respective regions.
Since its launch in October 2007, the Science Express exhibition train has covered over 68,000 km across the country during its four phases. The state-of-the-art exhibition train has covered 263 stations across the country, while 87 lakh visitors have visited it.
The SEBS is a collaborative initiative of Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) and Department of Science and Technology (DST) in partnership with Indus Towers and Vikram A. Sarabhai Community Science Centre (VASCSC). From Delhi, the train will travel to Jaipur, Jodhpur, Barmer and terminate at Ahmedabad.
An interactive display about how the brain works to understand any language was one of the major highlights in the exhibition. ‘Architecure of Mind’ elaborated which parts of brain work to understand sentence structure and grammatical errors.
The train received a laudable response from students who made a beeline for it with their teachers and parents, curious to learn about the country’s flora and fauna. Nitin, a volunteer in the coach that focuses on India’s coastline and islands, said, “It is very exciting to interact with people of all age groups. Each has a different query based on their interest. Some ask simple questions, while people belonging to research institutes ask logical questions. Some don’t know even common species of their region, while some were able to identify them.”
Stills of different species of plants and animals outside the train’s coaches also attracted people who arrived at the station to catch their trains.
One coach ‘Joy of Science Lab’, an initiative of Indus Towers, was dedicated to live demonstration on various subjects in order to help children understand basic concepts. Arun Awasthy, CEO-Delhi Circle, Indus Towers said, “We are very proud to partner with SEBS. We are hopeful that the initiative will help educate a large number of people on various issues related to the environment.”